


I Can(t) Save Him

by PrincessSkylar (orphan_account)



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Climbing Class, M/M, sad sad sad little bit of happiness then boom fucking sad, wendigo josh - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 21:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4851089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/PrincessSkylar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the events of Blackwood Mountain leave Chris traumatized, he decides the only way to ever find peace again is to find Josh, and protect him at any and all costs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What I Saw

**Author's Note:**

> Based on my own Tumblr post. My cousin said I should legit write it so here we fuckin go. (Find me on Tumblr at cochise-chris, unless you wanna avoid spoilers)
> 
> My first video game fanfiction so please be gentle.

“He saved my life… And I watched him die,” Chris admitted tiredly as he dropped his gaze to the ground.

 

The police officer leaned forward. She was a kind woman, carefully taking notes and always speaking carefully. “And Josh?” she pressed.

 

Chris raised his gaze to look at her again. “What about him?” he asked, his voice weak and ready to break at any moment.

 

“We haven’t recovered his body,” she explained, her tone ever-gentle, like she actually cared about any of them.

 

Chris wasn’t surprised, he had expected something like this. He had already been fairly confident he knew Josh’s demise, from the moment Sam and Mike had appeared without him. Still… He hadn’t let go of the hope that they would find him alive, unharmed and safe. Even now, as the kind officer stared at him sympathetically from the other side of the table, even as his throat grew tight in grief, he felt a voice nagging at him, quietly reassuring him that his best bud would make it back.

 

He tried to squash that voice, pushing it back and reminding himself what kind of horrors awaited on that mountain. Even if Josh wasn’t dead yet, he would be soon. His flesh stripped and devoured by those giant crawling monsters- because they couldn’t all be dead, right?

 

“The Wendigo,” he muttered, quietly reprimanding himself for grasping so pathetically for hope.

 

“What?” the officer asked, her gentle voice suddenly louder, resounding against Chris’s ears in such a way he thought she may be angered.

 

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” he added, looking her in the eye in hopes to convince her-- no, to convince himself. “The Wendigo took him down to the mines.” Then the reality started to set in. All he had to do was say it aloud, his throat closed up again. He realized then that, even if the explosion had killed all of the monsters on the mountain, Josh could have sustained heavy injuries. He could be lying in a puddle of his own blood in the mines, slowly dying and wondering where his friends had gone, why they had abandoned him, all the while haunted by those horrible images that plagued his mind when he was unmedicated.

 

Or worse, what if the spirit of the Wendigo managed to get inside of Josh? _Oh, god_. Chris suddenly felt very sick. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, the horrible image of Josh, lonely and starving and desperate and sick making him nauseated. He hid his face in his hands, suddenly overwhelmed by all of the possibilities, all of the horrible, painful ways Josh could be suffering, because they had left him up there, all alone. Oh god, he should have gone back. He should have gone with Mike to rescue him, should have-- should have done _something!_

 

The quiet beep of the recording ending invaded his thoughts, reminding Chris where he was. Alive, safe, out of the mountain.

 

Alone.

 

“I think that’s all the information we need,” the officer said softly.

 

Chris didn’t look up as her footsteps disappeared through the door.

 

**\--------**

 

_Chris paused in the hike, setting an hand on Sam’s arm. He looked around. “Ash?” he called, peering into the dark cave. He had just lost track of her, and in a situation like this, being separated was something they couldn’t risk._

_No reply. Every muscle in Chris’ body told him something was definitely_ wrong. _He looked around frantically. “Ash?!” he called louder._

_Sam nudged him. “Hey, maybe don’t tell the flesh-eating monsters where we are?” she hissed._

_A shriek pierced the air._

_“ASHLEY!” Chris’s first reaction was to run in the direction of the sound, but Sam grabbed his wrist. He turned to look at her, and she just shook her head, a look of terror mixed with disgust._

_“We have to--”_

_“Chris,” Sam said firmly. “We have to go on. If that thing got her, it could be coming this way.”_

_Chris swallowed thickly. He glanced in the direction of the sound again, before nodding and turning back to Sam. “Okay,” he relented, guilt twisting in his gut at the concept of leaving her. “Lead on.”_

 

**\--------**

 

Chris stared at the ceiling.

 

“Christopher?” his psychiatrist, Dr. Hill, asked softly.

 

Chris jumped slightly. _You’re fucking pathetic, Christopher!_ Josh’s voice rang in his head.

 

“Sorry, I… What’d you say?” he asked, rubbing his forehead tiredly. Everything he did seemed to be tired recently.

 

“What happened to Ashley?” he asked patiently.

 

“She… I don’t know,” Chris resigned, tired of repeating himself. He could insist she was taken by a monster all he wanted, but no one ever listened. No one knew. Unless they were there, but Chris hadn’t been allowed to see Mike, Sam, Matt, or Jess since the incident. He was starting to wonder if he had imagined some of it. He wondered what the others had said. “We… We were in the mine,” he explained for the upteenth time. “Just Sam, and Ash, and me. Then… Ash was gone. I called out but she…” He shrugged heavily. “She was gone.”

 

Hill nodded thoughtfully and wrote something down. “What do you think happened to her?” Hill asked, also for the millionth time.

 

“I already told you,” Chris sighed, closing his eyes and throwing an arm over them.

 

“Are you sure that’s what happened?”

 

Chris bit his lip, growing really tired of this bullshit. He sat up abruptly and looked Hill straight in the eye. “I _know_ what I saw.”

 

**\--------**

 

The following days were monotonous. Answer the same twenty questions with the police, answer a round of prodding from Hill, take his pills at the scheduled time, force down some food at some point. Chris grew tired and distressed and all he longed was sleep, quiet and dreamless and unending… Not at all like the nightmares that woke him in the middle of the night.

 

One thing of which he was vaguely aware, was how quickly his weight was declining. His stomach constantly ached, and when he thought of food it twisted. More often than not, the idea of forcing anything down his throat brought up the horrible image of eating human flesh. He ended up on his knees in the bathroom a lot.

 

Another week passed. Chris was getting sicker. He was getting angrier. A few times, he would snap at a cop, doctor, or therapist, demanding to see his friends, or his family, or just to be left alone.

 

He wasn’t sure which was worse, really. He hated being examined, evaluated, constantly having everything he said scrutinized, yet... When he was alone with his thoughts, he always ended up remembering that night on the mountain. Painfully recalling every detail he could, until his sobbing grew to the point he couldn’t breathe. Then imagining every other horrible circumstance that could have become them, until he was too tired to cry anymore. Until tears leaked numbly down his face and all he could do was stare vacantly, trying desperately to numb the thoughts. On a good night, this would tire him out until he passed out.

 

But then, even sleeping wasn’t enough. His subconscious was plagued with images of a masked man, of a saw ripping through the torso of his best friend. He would see Ashley, sobbing and tied up and blood-splattered. Or sometimes, he saw the blade slice through her instead. In every case, it was his own doing. Whether it was a wendigo tearing into one of his friends, or a psychopath chopping them into pieces. He had always caused it.

 

One day, while the police were exhausting him with the same round of tedious questions, they brought up something new.

 

That day’s pick of narrow-minded pork was a young dark-skinned man. Not that Chris could really be bothered to care anymore. All he saw was the uniform. “We think we’ve found Ashley’s body,” the officer reported.

 

Chris stiffened. He looked up at the cop for the first time in weeks, the news breaking through the numbness to offer more grief and a fleeting sense of relief; at least she hadn’t become one of… Those.

 

“And Josh?” he asked, slightly hopeful.

 

“We’re doing our best,” the cop replied apologetically.

 

Chris deflated, stale anxiety swirling anew in his chest as he once again considered the countless possibilities of what could have happened to him.

 

“We’re gonna need you to ID the body for us,” the officer continued gently. “If you’re up for it.”

 

Chris shrugged. Part of him hoped that seeing that she was gone, good and finally, he would be able to accept it. He had accepted Emily’s demise already.

 

“One thing,” the officer continued, lowering his head to try to catch Chris’s gaze. “We found the body, but… Not the head.”

 

Chris’s stomach jolted. “Oh, god,” he muttered, feeling his breakfast threaten to come back. Well, yesterday’s breakfast.

 

“We can call in someone else if we need to,” the officer placated calmly. “If you’re not up for it.”

 

“No.” Chris shook his head. He looked up to meet the officer’s gaze fiercely. “I want to see her.”

 

**\--------**

They hadn’t even cleaned the body yet. Ashley still wore her black leggings, her little shorts, her fuzzy boots. She was still covered in blood. They had covered her neck, to keep Chris from having to experience more gore, probably. He didn’t care. He looked down at her delicate hands. “It’s her,” he said dryly.

 

 


	2. byeeeee

So um... I don't think I'll be writing any more of this. I sort of fell out of the fandom... For reasons. I don't think anyone's really reading this anyway, so... Yeah. I'll probably orphan this. Sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> Haha, get it? What I SAW? Cause this chapter's about Ashley?   
> i'm a jerk


End file.
